182 



bury. Tlie Cathedral of Armagh appears also to have been a lime 

 and stone building before the English invasion, and must have been 

 purely Irish, as the Danes who first took and sacked the city in 830 

 were Pagans, and did not become converts to Christianity until the 

 year 948. Besides, spoil and oppression by fire and sword were 

 their only objects. .■ • f 



This cathedral, when in A. D. 1125 the roof was repaired and 

 covered with tiles by Celsus, had been partly uncovered for an 

 hundred and thirty years, having been burned by the Danes in 

 995: and in 1145 Gelasius, then bishop, built an immense kiln to 

 burn lime for the repair of the walls ; they were consequently not 

 then of wattle or timber. It is even said, that a small portion of the 

 original wall of the cathedral can still be pointed out at a spot 

 where, till of late years, the incumbent received induction since the 

 demohtion of the old parish church.* 



The Culdees had a large establishment at Armagii ; and some of 

 their buildings, parts of a monastery and academy, were not only 

 standing, but actually inhabited so late as the year 1819, when 

 these ancient walls and " stone bed-chambers" were pulled down.-f 

 There are also other remains which bear the characteristics of 

 the earliest ages ; such are those at Lough Derg, the chapels at 

 Innis Murray, Arran, Clonmacnoise, and several other places: 

 and it is worthy of remark that these our oldest ecclesiastical build- 

 ings are almost always in the immediate vicinity of pagan remains 

 and round towers. .,iu.;ji. 



Of these towers there are upwards of seventy, J scattered through- 

 out the kingdom, all built with a wonderful uniformity of plan, al- 



* History of Armagh, pp. 128—588—603. 



t Ibid. pp. 95— SiS. 



J It is said that ninety-seven are still standing.— Parochial Survey, II. p. 508. 



